


River Flows In You

by clare328



Category: Veronica Mars - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4091239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare328/pseuds/clare328
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Series. Post Lily's murder. The grieving process. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>When the X-Terra parks in front of her house and Logan stumbles out, walking in a half stupor towards her, she allows herself to hope that maybe she isn’t alone in feeling like this, and immediately hates herself for thinking it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	River Flows In You

**Author's Note:**

> My first posted fic from all the way back in 2009. Figured I'd may as well post it here. Beta'd only by myself, because I've been dabbling with this one for months now and I'm just forcing myself to put it out there. Title taken from the track by Yiruma.
> 
> Rob Thomas created it, I'm just playing with it. Don't sue, please. I have no money.

__Logan finds himself driving to Ronnie’s. He can’t go home, not right now. The idea of facing Aaron at the moment makes him physically ill. Can’t fucking be strong, can’t take it like a man. Can’t do anything the way Aaron deems appropriate and the acting gene either looked him over or just wasn’t there in the first place.

He knows Veronica won’t expect anything from him, and he’s a little scared to discover just how much he needs her right now. Not scared enough to turn around though, so he follows the familiar route to the edge of the 09er district.

Veronica’s neighbourhood offers more comfort than his own. Comfortable lines and simple, slightly shabby gardens that offer more humanity than the palaces he experiences, _(palaces and hard lines and murder all rolled into one that he couldn’t imagine happening here)_.  
  
She’s sitting on the front steps of her porch when he pulls up, staring into space with puffy, red eyes that are all cried out. She is dressed simply in denim shorts, cami, and a light hoodie, and whereas Li- _she_ would look fucking sexy and hot and terrifying in something like that, Ronnie just looks so _lost_. As if she didn’t even see the clothes she pulled over her head this morning, just went through the motions, operating on automatic.

He knows what it’s like.

*****

Veronica really doesn’t want to be inside right now, despite the fact that the sun set ten minutes ago and already the temperature has dropped dramatically. Lianne is taking Lily’s - _absence_ \- hard and it’s all Veronica can do not to tear her drunken head off.  
__  
_(She was MY best friend._  
You’re supposed to be looking after ME.  
You’re my MOTHER. She was my Best Friend. We were supposed to grow old together.  
Stop acting like this is hurting you more that it hurts me.  
I need you right now.)

 __But she knows it wouldn’t do anything except cause more vodka to mysteriously disappear, and she doesn’t have any energy to waste, so she’s grieving in solitary. It scares her to be so alone. She has never been alone in her life. Ever since she can remember there was Lily and Duncan, and when Logan joined them she never allowed herself to think that they might all leave her.

And now Lily is – gone – and Duncan is catatonic and her mother is passed out in her bedroom and her father hasn’t been home except for the two hours of sleep he grabbed early this morning. She has no clue where Logan is. She assumes that he would have come back from TJ immediately after hearing the news, but she hasn’t seen him. She’s terrified that she will have to go through this by herself, because her grief is overpowering her in a way she never thought possible and she hates whoever did this to her, in a way that could be dangerous.

When the X-Terra parks in front of her house and Logan stumbles out, walking in a half stupor towards her, she allows herself to hope that maybe she isn’t alone in feeling like this, and immediately hates herself for thinking it.

*****

Logan thumps down next to her, even in his haze retaining that natural grace of his, and Veronica turns slightly toward him. They have always been each other’s gravity, balancing each other out as Lilly and Duncan balanced each other, so different and yet so very similar. And they all orbited each other, all equal, all powerful, unbreakable. Veronica wonders will happen now that they are so very, visibly broken. The possibilities send a shiver down her spine.

They don’t say anything. There’s really nothing to say. But Veronica keeps dreaming of absurd conversations between them, the surreality of this weekend wreaking havoc on her imagination. She is afraid that if she opens her mouth to speak nothing will come out, except for a babble of gibberish that wouldn’t make any sense _(even though nothing makes any sense anymore)_.  
  
Logan is wringing his hands in his lap, his skin red raw from the heat and friction. Decisively, Veronica reaches over and grabs his right hand in both of hers, rests them on his knee. He squeezes them, every now and again, when he is hit once more with the wave of grief that has been crashing over him at various intervals since the previous night. He had held it off for a short period with copious amounts of alcohol and passing out on the beach, but it hadn’t done much, aside from giving him a killer headache that at least gave him something to think about.

Veronica releases a long held breath, and lays her head on Logan’s shoulder, relishing the warmth that he provides her. This is so natural to them, this action of comfort and taking comfort, and she shudders at the contrast it makes with the image in her head of Lily _(and water and crimson and green and flashing lights, eyes open and staring into nothing)_.

 __Logan feels her shaking and turns his face to her hair, pressing a soft kiss to her crown, so very grateful that she’s here with him _(because there’s no one else to be here with)_ and that she’s letting him be here.

And they sit like this, silent tears making tracks down their faces, and they try to make sense of this new world they have been thrust into. __

_A world without Lily. Without LILY._

__Keith comes home, hours later that evening after a long, sad day of investigating a little girl’s murder _(she was just a little girl - who could do that to our little girls)_ and finds them like this _(awake but silent and so lost)_ and he doesn’t know what to do.  



End file.
